Suchergebnisse

Purpose
Recent studies have introduced new productive theoretical orientations to the vignette studies. There is not, however, sufficient analytical discussion on how the vignettes can be used in qualitative interviews for different functions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.


Design/methodology/approach
Whatever theoretical framing the researcher decides to apply in qualitative interviews using vignettes, the paper proposes that it is always important to consider in what way the chosen vignettes refer to the object under examination, whether they represent it as clues (metonyms, symptoms, enigmatic traces), as microcosms (icons, metaphors, totems, ideal types, homologies) or as provokers (anomalies, taboos, controversies).


Findings
When vignettes are used as clues in interviews, they can be introduced as puzzling traces, tracks or indexes which together with the interview questions carry out the interviewees to metonymic reasoning. When vignettes are used in interviews as microcosms, the interview questions are built so that they encourage the interviewees to consider the vignettes as icons that mimic reality or realities, their actors, situations, acts, events and processes. And when vignettes are used as provokers, they are selected and produced so that they challenge the forms, boundaries, meanings and habits of the well-known and plausible realities of the interviewees.


Originality/value
The paper demonstrates with examples how vignettes function in the interviews as clues, microcosms or provokers and shows why it is important to pay attention to this.

AbstractIn this articleIdevelop tools for analyzing the identities that emerge in qualitative material.Iapproach identities as historically, socially and culturally produced subject positions, as processes that are in a constant state of becoming and that receive their temporary stability and meaning in concrete contexts and circumstances.Isuggest that the identities and subject positions that materialize in qualitative material can be analyzed from four different perspectives. They can be approached by focusing on (1)classificationsthat define the boundary lines between 'us' and 'them', as (2)participant rolesthat refer to the temporal aspect of subject positions and outline their meaning for action, as (3)structures of viewpointandfocalizationthat frame meaning and order to opinions and experiences of the world, and as (4)interactive positionsthat articulate the roles and identities taken by the participants of communication.

In qualitative research interviewing we can use stimulus texts (such as photos, films, adverts, sketches, news, historical sources) as devices for encouraging our interviewees to speak about the research topic. In literature this subject has, however, received very minor analytical interest. This article proposes that there are at least three analytically separate strategies for selecting and using stimulus texts in the production and analysis of interview data. In qualitative research, stimulus objects may be used as clues, as microcosms or as provokers. The different strategies imply different research designs, interview procedures and ways of analyzing the data. When we use stimulus texts as clues, we build the interview session so that the texts, together with the interview questions, induce our interviewees to extrapolate how the texts stand for the whole (metonymy). When we use stimulus texts as microcosms, we pose the interview questions so that our interviewees compare their worlds and identity positions against those of the stimulus objects (mimesis, identification). When stimulus texts are used as provokers, the researcher chooses cultural products that challenge, with the aid of provocative questions, the interviewees to deal with the established meanings, conventions and practices (symbolic dimension, naturalness, normality) of the phenomenon under examination.

This study analyses alcohol-related articles appearing in Finnish women's magazines from the 1960s to the present day. Women's magazines are approached as institutions constituting feminine publicities that address issues of interest as well as problems and contradictions in women's everyday life. Influenced by Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital, data analysis focuses around three main questions: (1) in what kinds of fields do the texts locate drinking; (2) what kinds of drinking-related subject positions do the texts offer their readers; and (3) what kinds of economic, social, cultural, physical, emotional and symbolic resources do they discursively construct and attach to these subject positions? The analysis shows that throughout the study period, women's magazines' alcohol-related texts position women readers into the realm of home and family and construct capitals that reinforce a 'caring ethics'. On the other hand, from the 1990s onwards, alcohol-related texts in women's magazines also begin to assign women to consumer positions of hedonistic consumer, rational consumer, status-oriented consumer, expert consumer and the consumer who is keen to break away from formality and construct capitals for these positions as well as wage through them a symbolic struggle over which lifestyles are 'in' and which are 'out'.

In the article we examine the management of social emotions and friendship bonds by analysing the young adults' pub and drinking diaries. We assume that emotions that are embodied in the management of friendship ties can be reduced to the emotions of pride and shame. According to Scheff, as primary social emotions, they are present in all communication and action. They express for the participants of interaction the actual "temperature" of social relations. Pride refers to a strong and safe involvement in interaction, in which individuals feel themselves fine and respectful. In a shameful state, individuals, in turn, experience themselves negatively in the eyes of others, which imply that social bonds are intimidated. The analysis of drinking experiences from the viewpoint of pride and shame brings expressively forth how drinking strengthens or weakens different kinds of social relations and dynamics and how actors try to attach to them or secede from them. In the diary narratives, the pride and shame of drinking is most strongly associated with reinforcement and bonding efforts of ties of friendship that are considered laid-back and like-minded. In relation to them the status, competition, the emphasis of one's self and indulging in love affairs occur in the narratives considerably more seldom, and if they occur, they rather contribute to shameful experiences or remain subordinate to friendship.

The article describes a zero tolerance project carried out between August 1999 and July 2000 in Tampere, Finland. Specifically, the authors are interested in the reception of the project among field workers as well as the main targets of the intervention. The project received considerable media exposure. Initially, the objectives of the project were to reduce the occurrence of violence, vandalism, substance use and disorderly behaviour in the town centre. Project management stressed from the outset that zero tolerance would not be applied to young people alone. However as soon as the project got under way, senior police officers and the media came to describe this as a campaign aimed at containing disruptive behaviour by young people and at getting parents and the local community involved in shouldering part of the responsibility. The data consist of interviews with police officers who worked in the field, social workers and young people. Our study goes to show that a lowered level of tolerance can have unwanted and uncontrollable consequences. The project strengthened the feeling of solidarity between adults but increased the lack of confidence between adults and young people.

In 2015, the newly elected government of Finland introduced austerity measures designed to improve the public economy, which had not recovered from the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The article examines how the government sought to secure acceptance for austerity by appealing to citizens' emotions. We analyse how the measures were emotionally motivated and how, according to the parties in power, citizens should and should not have felt about them. The article shows how the politics of austerity produces various and contradictory feeling rules. These seek to temper citizens' negative emotions towards austerity, such as dissatisfaction over unfair sharing of pain and distrust towards political authority. Interestingly, the rules evoke hope that a better future lies ahead if citizens follow the proposed measures, yet prompt fears of what will happen if they do not. The government also emphasised its transparency and honesty to prompt empathy and trust from the population.